 |
| I'm sure that Rahm Emanuel ... |
For
it comes at the same time that Cook County government is planning to sue the
people who fought so hard to challenge the legitimacy of the pop tax. The
county wants the months’ worth of revenues they otherwise would have collected
during July from such a tax.
BUT
JUST AS carbonated beverages create a gassy condition, one can also claim that
the Trump administration, through its Justice Department, has also been full of
hot air every time it talks about immigration policy and the way some cities –
including Chicago – show support for the immigrants through “sanctuary city”
status.
President
Donald J. Trump has let it be known he wants to start penalizing those
municipal governments that won’t hop into line with his rhetoric – which is
meant to appeal to the segment of our society determined to live in bigotry.
Many
of those people live in isolated communities of this nation, and in fact it
wouldn’t shock me to learn that many of the people who chose to live in Chicago
did so to escape such narrow-minded people like these.
Anyway,
we’ve been hearing months’ worth of threats about how federal funding provided
to the city will be cut – unless the city stops its policies that restrict the
ability of local police to get involved in areas of the law involving
immigration policy.
WHICH,
AFTER ALL, is a federal issue that local officials really are not the least bit
qualified to handle. No more than we’d want Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials to be involved in the daily investigations of the homicides occurring
in the city.
Emanuel
this week said he plans to have attorneys argue in U.S. District Court that the
U.S. government cannot tamper with Byrne grant funds from cities it is upset
with.
 |
| ... can find a judge somewhere in this complex ... |
Which
makes this more about the principle of the issue – getting a federal judge in
Chicago to tell the president to back off his harassment. Which, admittedly, is
being done largely to score bonus points for the president amongst his
ideologue followers.
JUST
AS WHEN Trump early on in his presidency tried to impose his travel
restrictions against people from certain Middle East countries from being able
to enter the United States, the federal courts came up with judges willing to
thwart the president’s ideological, nativist desires.
I’m
sure there is a federal judge working in the Dirksen/Kluczynski complex who
will be more than willing to view Emanuel as a daily part of his/her legal life
– while the president is just some esoteric concept who complains that his
government-issued mansion in D.C. is “a dump.”
Any
real resolution of this issue (whether cities have the right to refuse full
compliance with the whims of federal immigration officials) is going to be
decided at a higher level.
Maybe
even possibly the Supreme Court of the United States – which probably is going
to become preoccupied in coming years with determining just how much of Trump’s
rants and “tweets from a twit” that he tries to impose into law have any
legitimacy.
WHICH
MAKES THE use of the local federal courts the same as the lawsuit the county is
pursuing to pressure the anti-tax activist types to back off their opposition
to the pop tax.
 |
| ... to tell Trump to 'stifle' himself on immigration |
Maybe
it’s a form of legal intimidation. Or maybe it’s using the system to try to
prevent others from abusing their authority. Which is what many view Trump’s
efforts on immigration policy to really be all about.
Yes,
the pop tax is about raising more government funds through a fee on the sale of
carbonated beverages – those that can make us let out a loud belch.
Which,
when you come to think about it, is about the same reaction I feel every time I
think of the Trump administration’s efforts to use peoples’ nativist attitudes
against immigrants to try to lessen the record-low disapproval ratings they are
garnering.
-30-
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